The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which had granted summary judgment to the Patent and Trademark Office. On de novo review, the Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s finding that Harvard’s third patent on a gene sequence used to make research animals more susceptible to cancer had expired and was not eligible for new claims under 37 C.F.R. § 1.530(j).

Google Appeals Ruling that Use of Java APIs in Android Violates Oracle’s Copyrights

By Katherine Kwong– Edited by Ashish Bakshi

On October 6, Google filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to rule on whether copyright protections extend to the software’s “system or method of operation,” such as application programming interfaces (APIs). Google urges the Court to overturn the Federal Circuit’s previous decision, arguing that allowing long-term copyrights on systems and methods of operations would stifle innovation and creativity.